Secondary Traumatic Stress(STS) and related factors of Emergency Medical Technicians

응급구조사의 이차 외상성 스트레스 정도와 관련요인

Purpose : This study was to examine the secondary traumatic stress(STS) and related factors of emergency medical technicians. Methods : This study was conducted among 190 emergency medical technicians, over the age of 25, with the 1st or 2nd grade qualification, who serve at fire stations in U and P city of Korea. The collected data for this study was analyzed using SPSS 12.0. Result : The average character type of A-type personality technicians was 43.25 points and the average of B-type personality technicians was 37.82 points. It suggested that the former was higher than the latter. State anxiety did not show statistically significant difference between A-Type group and B-Type group with the score of 48.51 for A-Type and 47.91 for B-Type. Physical symptoms showed statistically significant difference between the two groups with the higher score of 28.45 for A-type group than that of 28.13 for B-Type group. The level of STS related to the volunteers' job characteristics was found to be low when the volunteers were satisfied with their job and didn't want to transfer to another division. Those on duty who had slept more than seven hours that day had the highest points. The number of points was highest when the frequency for the onset of trauma was between 20~30 times. Furthermore it was found that for most technicians, 71.05%, the period of symptoms lasted for a few weeks at most, and this was where the STS was the lowest, whereas on the other hand the highest STS occurred when the symptoms lasted for a period of up to six months. The findings showed significant correlations with a relation of r=.24 between STS and level of anxiety and r=.45 between STS and physical symptoms. However, no significant correlation was found between the level of anxiety and physical symptoms. Conclusion : The more emergency medical technicians are exposed to accidents, the more serious the STS are. Those with an A-type personality are especially prone to have higher STS. The higher the STS level is, the higher the level of physical states and anxiety is.